Re: Standards for translations?

[Ronald de Man <deman win tue nl>]

On Sun, Apr 25, 1999 at 01:28:37AM +0200, Kenneth Christíqua wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > After looking at some of the translations, I have some questions, mainly
> > about menu items.
> > 
> > For example, most File menus have an "Open" entry. In the Dutch, French,
> > and German translations, this is replaced by "Openen", "Ouvrir", and
> > "Öffnen", respectively. So apparently, the infinitive of the verb
> > is taken. My question: Is it anywhere stated that this is the desired
> > translation?
> > 
> > Personally, I view menu entries as commands. When I click File->Open,
> > I tell the program to open a file for me. Consequently, my preferred
> > translations would be "Open" and "Öffne" for Dutch and German (ack...
> > I'm a bit uncertain about the correct French right now).
> > 
> > At some places my preffered translation is given, at most places
> > one has chosen for the other option. Above all, I think the translations
> > should be consistent in this respect.
> > 
> > Ah, although my knowledge of Norwegian is extremely limited, I understand
> > enough of it to see that the Norwegian translator of gnome-libs
> > shares my preferred way of translating menu items (Åpne). I have the
> > impression that the same holds for the Spanish translator (Abrir) and
> > the Italian tranlator (Abri).
> 
> "To open" is in danish called "at åbne"
> "open the door" is in danish called "åben døren"

Oops:)

(I suppose Danish and Norwegian are alike in this respect.)

Well as I said, my knowledge of Norwegian is extremely limited :)

> 
> So in the danish translations I have replaced open with åben, which
> I think is the way you want it to be

Personally, I'd like to see it that way, yes.
And I think that's how the original English versions are supposed
to be read (as commands to the program).

> 
> As far as I guess Åpne (norwegian) probably means "åbne" since the
> norwegian language is based on danish
> 
> Abrir (spanish) means "to open" and "open the door" would
> be translated to "Abri la puerta"

Yes, again my mistake. In fact, just 'abrir' did appear to me as
being the infinitive, but reading the translations of a few more
items I got the wrong impression that the translator had taken
my approach.

> 
> I think "to open" is called Abrire or something like that in italien, so 
> Abri probably means "open!!!"

Yes! (So I got this one correct! :))

> 
> Mostly people translate GNOME to their language, like MS windows 
> is translated, since that's what people are used to.

Yes, I suppose this has something to do with it (but I never used
a Dutch version of windows long enough to remember what approach
is taken there).

Hmmm. I just found an document giving directions for Amiga tranlators
(all in Dutch). They apparently think that the English 'Open'
should be translated as 'Openen' (infinitive) instead of 'Open' (open!!!).
But that's so clumsy!!!!!

'Openen bestand' in a Dutch menu, is like 'Opening File' in English.

> 
> > 
> > Another inconsistency is in the use of capitals. Should every word
> > occurring in a menu item be capitalized or not. This might depend
> > on the language in question. At the moment, even the original English
> > versions are inconsistent. (For example, games have "New game", but
> > most programs have "Open File" and similar.)
> > 
> > I'm interested to hear what other people think about this.
> > 
> 
> In danish, you only write the first word with big signs, because of the
> gramma.
> 
> It's allowed in English thought, but I don't like it that much. I think
> that "Open file" looks way better than "Open File"

Yes, this might really be language dependent. As with titles: in Dutch,
only the first word of a title is capitalized. In English titles, only
words like 'of' and 'the' do not get a capital. Apparently, Danish is
like Dutch in this respect.

Ok, more reactions are greatly appreciated.

Ronald